Another chapter is here!
Enjoy!
Three seconds. That's how long it took for the battlefield to be completely reshaped.
In the first second, the First Hokage wordlessly slammed his hands into the ground as the Second Hokage used a single hand-seal. In the second, Tenzo encased their group in a wooden sphere of protection as the world around them trembled in warning. And in the third, the walls that made up the underground base were torn apart from the inside out as invasive roots took hold while water burst from the air, combining to unleash the wrath of nature.
The wooden shell cracked and splintered loudly, straining to avoid being crushed as the shinobi that crafted it braced the sides and gritted his teeth. Then it stopped seconds later. Silence ensued until Tenzo split the shell's casing in half for them to escape now that the roots that sprang up from below had stopped trying to entwine it and violently crush them to death.
They vacated it and landed on the first sylvan footing they could find, only to see that the muddy landscape surrounding the base, which had been warped by Jiraiya's Swamp of the Underworld initially, had been even further twisted from its natural state. It was now filled with murky water that thinned the mud and hardy trees that rose up at the former Hokages' techniques. Even the air was tinged with the scent of decaying matter, adding to the illusion that it had been an old locale forged through nature and time, rather than something crafted within the span of ten minutes by men—or undead men, to be specific.
The sight would have been stolen the breath of average shinobi. And in that moment of doing so, they would have been killed as skewer-thin streams of water speared from the swamp with a rapid spin, meant to drill through them. But, as none of the gathered shinobi were average, they eluded the skewering drills that bore cleanly into the thick branches they were perched on and sprung into combat.
Kakashi revealed his inherited Sharingan as he landed on the water's surface, and the tomoe spun to life. The flow of chakra revealed before him allowed him to avoid the needles of water that sprung from the murky depths with well-timed leaps before rushing towards where Second Hokage was hidden behind a genjustu atop the water. Engaging the revenant with kunai in hand, he refused to give him an inch to make another hand-seal.
At the same time, Might Guy's muscles felt a familiar strain as the Gates of Opening and Healing opened at once to empower him against the First Hokage. The flood of chakra that surged through his body allowed for him to land a fierce kick that slammed into the undead Kage's chest and sent him skirting across the water and into one of his own trees. Bindings of wood then coiled around him as Tenzo came from behind, pinning him into place for Guy to land a stronger blow.
They didn't last a second as the First Hokage tensed his muscle and broke free, meeting Guy's flying kick with his palm to stop it. He then grabbed hold of his ankle and slammed him into the tree hard enough to break it in half. Guy gritted his teeth before opening the Gate of Life and Pain, using the further bolstered strength to pull his leg free and tear off the revenant's arm in the process.
He then slammed his fist into the First Hokage's face and the revenant went sailing back, only to be struck again from behind and be sent flying forward. Then he was struck from the side by a green blur, then from the bottom, and then from the top. Over and over, Might Guy struck from all angle with hammer-like blows before he struck downwards a final time.
The blow carried enough force that the moment the First Hokage's body hit the water it ruptured from the impact. The revenant hit the bottom of the swamp and created a deep depression, broken and battered. Then the water rushed back inwards, obscuring him from sight.
It was seemingly over until wooden spears rose from beneath the surface. Guy avoided them but was caught as the First Hokage appeared behind him and lashed out with a kick that would have shattered a lesser man's spine. Guy bore with it as he landed on the water's surface and then struck back just as hard.
With the two undead Hokage occupied, only Orochimaru and Jiraiya were left to fight alone.
The resurrected Snake Sannin, using the body of his former apprentice, drew a katana from inside of his mouth and brought it around for Jiraiya's head. The Toad Sage deflected it with the use of a kunai in one hand, before bringing his leg up and thrusting it forward like a spear. The bottom of his wooden sandals smashed into the slender body and would have caved in Orochimaru's chest if he hadn't jumped back with the blow.
Jiraiya then spun around so that his long mane of hair was facing his former teammate and sent his chakra into it. The hair strands went rigid as the chakra hardened them into needles. Then he jettisoned them forward in a deathly spray.
There was no dodging it. Even going under the murky water would simply result in the needles skewering him from above. So instead Orochimaru exhaled after filling his lungs with wind chakra and bellowed out a gale that sent the ivory needles flying back. Jiraiya countered the C-Rank technique by spinning around while forming hand-seals and unleashing a flame technique of the same rank. The moment the flames met the wind, they swelled and turned into a raging inferno that would have swallowed Orochimaru whole if he didn't drop down into the water.
Even then steam filled the section of the swamp they were in as the flames evaporated the water. Charred trees caught in its wake smoldered and collapsed into the depths, hindering any attempt to listen for his movements in the water. Feeling the wet heat condense against his skin, Jiraiya abandoned the use of his eyes to instead clasp his hands together as though to pray, releasing a translucent dome that expanded around him.
The expanding barrier allowed him to detect the presence of others within it, regardless of what method Orochimaru used to hide. Sure enough, it quickly caught up to Orochimaru's presence beneath the water. At the same time, he felt a large figure rushing towards him from that direction and barely had time to leap up before the surface of the water was broken.
It was a large snake summoning, mouth gaping wide and ready to swallow him whole. Unable to waste time with it, Jiraiya spat out as much toad oil as he could down its throat and then followed it up with an explosive tag. The flames that were born from within swallowed the serpent whole as the Toad Sage landed and then clasped his hands again to reactivate the detection barrier.
Orochimaru was moving again above the water's surface. Jiraiya couldn't let the man get away again, so naturally he gave chase with the intention of using a sealing scroll he'd prepared just for Orochimaru, under the assumption that he had become weaker after changing bodies. Anko's body may have been compatible, but completely transferring your soul and chakra to someone else just had to have a drawback somewhere.
He redoubled his efforts as they approached the edge of the swamp, only for Orochimaru to look over his shoulder at Jiraiya. And in that brief moment, the Toad Sage caught the faintest hint of a smirk on his face. It set off alarms in his head and made him reconsider what he was doing.
Orochimaru was a slippery snake because he was cautious. Jiraiya had chased the man for a long time now, and it was only by hiding his presence and letting the Snake Sannin be caught by surprise that they'd managed to face one another in the village. Even then, they used the element of surprise and his own barrier to kill him.
So why did this feel… wrong?
I'm missing something, he realized. There had to be a reason that Orochimaru was running away. He had to have been waiting for them… but why was that the case? If he was weakened, why wait for them to arrive when he could have slipped away sooner?
Did he intend to use the First and Second Hokage to kill them after he left the expendable ones to soften them up? If that was the case, he could have just left them there and given them the order to attack on-sight. Not wait until they entered the room. Unless…
"Damn it!" Jiraiya skid to a stop as the pieces fit together and created a Shadow Clone to remain behind while he rushed back into the swamp. The clone glared at the figure of Orochimaru as he stood there.
"A Shadow Clone?" The Snake Sannin shook his head. "I'm a little insulted."
"Drop the act," the clone said. "You're not him, despite playing the part. If I had to guess, you're that brat he keeps around, Kabuto."
A look of brief surprise crossed 'Orochimaru's' face. It then warped into an amused smile. "And here I thought that I had imitated him perfectly. Then again, Lord Orochimaru warned me that you wouldn't be fooled for long. I have to ask, what gave it away?"
"Orochimaru knows when to go to ground and he wouldn't be sitting on a throne waiting for us to come to him unless he thought he could take us all. You did this to buy time for him, and if you've taken after him then you're not really here as well. Probably one of his expendable flunkies you've rendered brain-dead and turned into a puppet or something."
"Ah… in my defense, the corpse had been prepared for some time now and I simply put it use. Nevertheless, my task has been complete. The First and Second Hokage have been set to kill all of you. Should they lose track of you they will then go on to attack the village, and the only way to release the technique is if Lord Orochimaru deems to. It is our victory."
That said the modified corpse gave a bow to the Shadow Clone. Then it immediately exploded as the clone rushed in to at least wipe it off the face of the planet. Thus both facsimiles of the combatants were removed from the battle.
The original Jiraiya gritted his teeth in anger as he inherited the memories from the clone. Again Orochimaru had made fools of them and would escape reprisal for now. He was always one step ahead, getting away with causing pain to others, and it infuriated Jiraiya.
But he grounded his anger. Pushed it aside as he grabbed hold of the scroll meant to seal away Orochimaru amd made his way towards where the fighting continued. It could still be used if he repurposed it—
ROOOAARRRR!
The train of thought was scattered by the thunderous shrieking of dragons. Four of them roared at the top of their lungs, manifestations of the Water Dragon and Wood Dragon techniques brought forth by the undead pair of Hokage and Tenzo with Kakashi. Coiling their serpentine bodies around one another, they battled by snapping their jaws in a contest of power as they tore one another apart.
While they were pre-occupied, Might Guy appeared in a blur through the opening with his nunchucks chambered. The moment he swung them both, the revenants entire upper bodies were gone from the sheer force of the impact backed by four gates. He swung again to scatter the lower halves of their bodies as well, and then leapt back towards the others as Jiraiya arrived.
"Lord Jiraiya, did you apprehend Orochimaru?" Guy asked, his skin red as blood pumped through his body at an accelerated pace under the Fourth Gate's opening.
"That wasn't him. It was a distraction." A grimace that matched the notable disdain in his voice formed on his face as he watched the revenants begin to reform themselves. "Right now we need to stop these two or they'll go on to destroy the village."
"Easier said than done, Sir," Kakashi said. "They're closer to machines rather than living beings. However, they merely reconstitute themselves and continue to attack when killed. Our best option would likely to be seal them away."
"I can use the sealing scroll I prepared for Orochimaru," he said as the two finished reforming. "Tenzo, I'll need you to make a coffin just big enough to fit both of them. Guy, Kakashi, pin them down for a second."
"Sir!" they all responded at once. Then there was no more room for discussion after that as the two undead Hokage began their attack again. And this time they escalated even further.
The Second Hokage began to exhale a powerful stream of water in front of him that broke the surface of the murky swamp and then began to churn it violently into an expanding, spiraling wall that threatened to sweep them away. Their primary means of escape was cut off as well as a wooden wall emerged around them to form a dome that blotted out the moonlight and encased them in darkness. It was a combination attack meant to grind them into a smear against the wooden cage while the two behind it remained protected within the eye of the hurricane.
With no hesitation, the elites of the Leaf village acted. To meet the combined efforts of two of their village's greatest shinobi, even as shades of themselves raised from the dead, they held nothing back. Might Guy opened up the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Gates while Kakashi's mirror-wheel eye warped into its kaleidoscopic form.
Chakra and sweat bloomed in the form of a magnificent green aura that threatened to overtake them all as it displaced the water that steadily grated at it. Guy took on a stance with his fist chambered back and tensed his muscles, prepared to release it. At the same time, Kakashi swiveled around and then fixated his eye on the wooden dome encasing them. Everything at the center of his view began to distort as he used it as a lens and pushed out all the chakra he could to force Kamui to activate, doing his best to ignore the sensation that was like getting a kunai plunging through his eye and into his skull.
Space warped and was drawn into itself to create a perfectly shaped hole as Kakashi then passed out, blood trailing from his eye. Jiraiya caught hold of him and then rushed out of the hole with Tenzo, leaving Guy behind. The moment they were cleared, Tenzo encased them in another shell of protection as thick as he could and forced it as deep as he could into the ground so they were out of the blast-zone as Guy unleashed a single punch as fast as he could.
And the Daytime Tiger burst the wooden cage it was confined within apart.
The pressure expanded to where it caught the entirety of the swamp and leveled it from the sheer force of the blow. Nothing remained but an expansive crater the size of a lake as Might Guy landed, unharmed but sweat glistening from his brow. Every bone in his body was rattling from the shockwave, and the strain of the chakra that threaded every inch of his being tore apart his muscle fibers.
The fight was out of him for the time being, leaving him to watch as the two revenants began to reform right in front of him. That was when two wooden halves emerged from the ground beneath them and snapped shut like the jaws of a shark, sealing them inside. The shell that had been buried within the earth popped out and split open so that Tenzo could thrust his hand into the coffin snare he created, warping his fingers to form wooden bands to wrap around it.
"Now!" he said, straining as he wrestled control over the wood against the First Hokage. "Do it now!"
Jiraiya unfurled the scroll with a sharp motion using his left hand as he bit into his right thumb. He then ran his finger along the scroll to mark it with his blood, before he formed a one-handed gesture and spoke with chakra threading his voice to activate it. "Let the evil be sealed within!"
The words carried his intention as the unfurled scroll wrapped around the coffin like a winding serpent. Sealing script on the paper bled off of it, the ink running over the coffin and impressing upon it a central sealing sigil that was bordered by dozens of lines that ran both vertically and horizontally over the wood. The struggle stopped the moment it was done and the sealing script shone with a purple haze as it drank in his chakra until there was little to give.
"It's done," Jiraiya said, sighing with a shuddering breath as chakra exhaustion was on the verge of setting in. "That's a multi-layered seal, packed with everything that I thought would be useful for dealing with Orochimaru. It's meant to contain a soul, also paralyzing that within it under an intensified gravity field and let no chakra in or out. Nothing gets in, nothing gets out without my doing so."
"As expected of you… Lord Jiraiya," Guy said wearily, lacking the usual energy in his voice. "What… next…?"
"By now the snake will have gone to ground," he said. "Until he makes his next move or we find another lead, we head back to the village and have the Old Man seal this coffin away somewhere no one can reach it."
[-oOo-]
Back in the Leaf village, unaware of his mentors' struggles, Naruto slowly had Suzaku descend outside of Karin's house. It had gotten later than they expected after they had finished dinner and dancing on the water's surface. But all good things had to come to an end, and keeping Sakura all night to refresh the illusion would have been selfish.
Speaking of Sakura, his clone was in the process of escorting her home. The clone had created another clone to send the memories to him mid-flight and allowed him to recall what the pair had discussed, including the fact that Sasuke was being distant again. While his clone had said to leave it to Kakashi, he should probably look into it on his own since, even if he was a Chuunin now, they were still part of the same team and the fact that she shared that information with him meant that she was really worried.
He'd also have to really thank Ayame for everything. She'd want to know how the date went and he felt like he owed her for the food and the advice. Oh, and because Sakura wanted the recipe for what she had made for dinner.
Once Suzaku landed, Naruto once again helped her down from atop of it. Only this time a giggle tickled his ears instead of a surprised yelp. It matched the bright smile on Karin's face as she looked him in the eyes.
"That was so much fun," she said, folding her hands together behind her back. "I didn't expect something like that. You really put a lot of work into it."
Naruto grinned brightly at that. "Glad you enjoyed it."
"Now I've got to think of something to return the favor." She placed her hands on her chin in thought. "You've set the bar pretty high, so it'll have to be something really special. It'll take me some time to figure out what to do."
"You don't need to. It's just—" His words died as Karin leaned in to kiss him once again.
This time it was on the lips, a feather-soft touch that blossomed in his mind like fireworks. There was no single word to describe it. It was hot as the sun, yet it was sweet as honey, a delightful feeling that robbed him of the ability to think as the kiss lingered for what seemed to be a lifetime. Then she pulled away with a blush on her cheeks that matched the one that painted Naruto's, both a deep shade of red that was the same as her hair.
"I know I don't have to, Naruto," she said afterwards, brushing her hair back awkwardly. "But I want to. Because if I do my best and it makes you happy, then I'll be happy too. That's what I want our relationship to be like, where we're happy because we make one another happy. Don't you?"
Lost for words, Naruto nodded dumbly.
"Anyway, we have a big day tomorrow at the Sealing R & D building." Karin opened her door. "I'll see you there, okay?"
He was still lost for words until Suzaku prodded him with its beak to snap him out of his stupor. "Right, see you then. Have a good night."
"You too, Naruto." She gave him a wave before shutting the door gently.
Naruto stood there for a moment longer to center himself. He vigorously shook his head to clear it of the warm haze that loitered with memories of the kiss as he climbed onto Suzaku's back, to little avail. The cool night air as it flew back towards his home did a much better job of sobering him up as he headed back towards his apartment.